An everyday tale of family and political life with a dollop of Formula One and various random thoughts on the side.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

In which I warmly embrace Liberal Vision

While all the attention today is on the Social Liberal Forum conference in Islington, I shall be spending today in the arms of Liberal Vision at their event. I'm fairly certain the food is going to be better - kicking off with coffee and bacon rolls at 9:30 and with scones and cakes featuring on the menu throughout the day.

The event I'm going to today is run by a Scottish group of the same name, which, when it realised what it had done, had to ensure that people realised that they were nothing to do with that lot down south by a rather sheepish paragraph at the bottom of all its correspondence stating so.

The idea of today is to bring together Liberal Democrats of all opinions "aimed at developing a Liberal Vision for the future of Scotland by applying fundamental principles of Liberal philosophy and social democracy to foreseeable changes in our country over the next decade."

I feel that too often we've produced a list of well meaning policies at elections without showing where our heart is and today's event will be helpful in weaving that much needed narrative.

We have some real issues to deal with up here - housing, poverty, social care, mental health would be my priorities. We need to find liberal solutions to these - and, arguably, we need to look well beyond the next decade.

I'm really looking forward to it. Willie Rennie, our new leader, will be there as well, speaking at the end of the day. We also have Robert Brown, so missed from Holyrood where he was a fantastic education minister and justice spokesperson, former MEP Elspeth Attwooll and former convener Judy Hayman.